Day three since Nancy’s sacking, and current Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson is still in a job…

A few months ago, James over on the Celtic blog started a clock with the number of days it had been since Michael Nicholson had made a public appearance, and we actually heard him speak.

If I’m being honest, when James started that clock, I couldn’t tell you what Michael Nicholson’s voice sounded like.

If you’d blindfolded me, and got me to listen to a line up of people speak with him in the middle of them, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you who he was.

Although, I tell a lie, his monotonous tones probably would have stood out to me, and I’d have been able to identify him quite easily.

Which I’ve since discovered since he decided he wanted to talk a lot in the last couple of months.

That’s because he really had no choice.

But that’s by the by, and rather irrelevant when it comes to the point I want to make.

Firstly, in honour of James’s previous Nicholson clock, I’m going to start a new one today.

It will be titled as follows:

Number of days Michael Nicholson remains Celtic CEO since Wilfried Nancy’s sacking.

As I pointed out in the headline to this article, today is day three.

Now, it is clear to me, and to anyone with half a brain, that Nicholson does not deserve to remain as Celtic CEO after what he has overseen in the last year or so.

But apparently clear thinking brains seem to be majorly lacking inside Celtic Park.

In fact most brains within the four walls of the club seem to be fixated on self-preservation.

None more so, than Michael Nicholson’s.

What really confuses me in all of this is if you were to quantify the actual financial loss the club has incurred in the last year under Nicholson, it is genuinely staggering.

In any other business, the plug would have been pulled a long time ago.

But not at Celtic.

And not for Nicholson.

Yet….

That’s the reason I’ve started the clock today.

Because I want to see how long this actually takes.

His position is untenable.

The evidence in that regard is overwhelming.

Yet today, he is still in a job.

Yesterday, the media wrote about how he was the “driving force” behind Wilfried Nancy’s sacking.

I eviscerated that particular notion in yesterday’s early piece.

I also highlighted the fact that it is rumoured that Dermot Desmond hired a consultantancy firm to do a deep dive into boardroom machinations.

Results have not been impressive thus far apparently.

Go figure.

Personally, I don’t think Desmond needed a consultancy firm to confirm for him that the club has been a shitshow for the last year or so.

Even Stevie Wonder can see that much.

But if the double billionaire wants to waste his money on such things, then who am I to question his judgement?

Flawed and all as it might be.

Its not as if profligacy hasn’t been the order of the day of late at Celtic, is it?

But just to put things into perspective, let’s take a look at just how profligate 2025 was for Celtic.

Then you might see why the current Chief Executive remaing in his job defies belief.

I’ll quantify this in the way that it has impacted the club financially, and also how it has impacted the footballing operation.

Nicholson’s hiring of Paul Tisdale has cost the footballing operation throughout 2025 in a way that could have far reaching consequences into the future.

Tisdale’s player acquisitions in the wake of the sales of Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kuhn, and Adam Idah, have left us with very few serious saleable assets.

The two outstanding names at Celtic Park at the moment are Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate.

After that, it is going to take a monumental effort in the remaining 18 fixtures of this season to raise the profile financially of the football squad again.

Put simply Celtic needs to win the League at a minimum to raise player profiles financially again.

The cost of Tisdale’s appointment is hard to calculate.

But it could measure in the tens of millions.

Whether that is a short term issue or a long term issue remains to be seen.

But the club’s tried and trusted player trading model has been severely damaged as a result of th so called “football doctor’s” hiring.

If he’s a doctor, he’s left our football operation in a very sick state.

I’m not even counting the costs of signing Shin Yamada, Hyato Inamura, Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, and Michel-Ange Balikwisha.

All of which have proven to be utter duds and a drain on both the wage bill, and the club’s finances overall.

We have the knock on effect of that then resulting in our failure to qualify for the Champions League.

That cost the club at least £50 million in revenue, £20 million of which was offset as a result of Europa League qualification.

The failure to recruit sufficiently in the disastrous summer transfer window resulted in hitherto unseen levels of fan discontent since 1994.

This brought about the formation of the Celtic fans collective.

Which represented 400+ supporters groups.

This formation resulted in the Not Another Penny campaign, along with several protests to date..

The self-inflicted financial impact of this campaign will only be evident in the next set of accounts.

The retention of Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay will only enforce the continuation of this campaign.

The stark reality is that retaining these men on the board will continue to cost the club in a punitive way.

These men are costing Celtic indefinitely by remaining in their jobs.

Finally, there is the Wilfried Nancy debacle.

The reputational and financial damage caused by this is as yet uncalculated.

We don’t know how much Nancy’s sacking cost the club, but it’s a few million at least for 33 days of work.

The knock on effect of his appointment could result in us losing this League title.

Both the reputational and financial damage this could cause would be far reaching, to say the least.

The appointment of Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney should mitigate against this, but there are no guarantees.

I could delve deeper here, but I think you get the general picture.

Suffice it to say, the overall cost to the club during 2025 under the current CEO’s stewardship is in the tens of millions.

The case against Michael Nicholson is overwhelming.

Keeping him in his position continues to harm Celtic Football club indefinitely.

It is time for him to go.

From today onwards, the clock will continue in every one of my articles.

Number of days Michael Nicholson remains Celtic CEO since Wilfried Nancy’s sacking – 3